I pulled the bond tighter around me like armor and fell faster, racing toward the past before the darkness could catch me.
I finally finished spinningand landed roughly in a crouch. The first thing I noticed was pain—not from the traveling, although the all-too-familiar nausea twisted my stomach. No, from the well inside me next to my channels, where that golden light resided; I felt echoes of pain. Screaming, searing pain.
The golden light receded, leaving just a trickle of its usual fullness. I squashed the rising panic, the fear of my return if that well was dry. I had come here, wherever here was, for answers. The rest of it was a problem for future Lexa.
If I had a future.
I raised my head, my eyes adjusting to the dim candlelight, and took in the canvas walls of a tent that appeared to be serving as a meeting room, before I felt the snick of a blade at my throat. A woman with pinned-back black curls was standing over me. I recognized the stubborn set of the jaw, the way she held her shoulders when preparing for a fight.
My eyes met hers. Turquoise—Andrever eyes.
And she was currently holding a blade to my throat.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
The sun disappeared. The days are upon us. It’s time. Fuck.
—From the journal of Violet Andrever
Correction—she was holdingmyblade to my throat.
Ironic.
“What the fuck is this? Start talking and make it good. I’ve had a very long day and I’m short on patience.”
Shit. This already wasn’t going as planned. Although, I hadn’t actually planned anything beyond getting here.
My mouth went dry. Maybe Finn had been right and I should have thought this through a bit more. Too late now.
“My name is Lexa Andrever. And I need to talk to you, Aunt Violet.”
Her eyes narrowed and the blade didn’t waver. “I have one niece,” she said dangerously, “and she is a baby. You arenota baby.”
I looked pointedly at Anamlae. I didn’t actually know what would happen if she cut me with it. I knew the blade was powerful, but it seemed like a lot to hope for a piece of metal to know a future bearer and decide to not make her bleed.
“Technically, I’m both. I’m from fifty years in the future. And right now, that baby is desperate enough to risk everything to come back and find you.”
She hesitantly searched my face for what felt like forever. Arriving at a decision, she took a step back, gesturing with the blade. “Talk.”
I drew breath again and I talked. I told her about the Veil. How everyone now thought I was the Orlaith. How she had appeared to me in dreams. I told her how I had searched for answers everywhere, including in her journal. And I told her about how she’d left me a letter.
“I did?” Her brows shot up.
“I guess it’s more accurate to say youwill.”
She paced inside the tent, then whirled to face me. “How do I know this isn’t some trick?”
I shrugged. “You don’t. But you could use your soul channel. That’s almost fully open, right? See what it tells you?”
She hmphed, a little miffed she hadn’t thought of it herself. She approached me cautiously, never taking her eyes off me, and just barely touched her fingertips to my chest, directly over my heart. My soul channel rose up to meet hers.
It was like looking into a mirror as her recognition flowed through the bond. Godsmother to godschild. Aunt to niece. Protector to protected.
Her breath caught. “Blessed Solais. Iknowyou. You really are… How is this possible?”
“The Veil is thinnest on High Days,” I said softly. “And apparently, a godsparent bond can stretch across time.”
